|
In 1912
the first Cooperative Club International was formed. The new
name Sertoma was first used in 1940 and has been the name ever
since. On December 12, 1959 the Lafayette Sertoma Club was
formed. Since then Sertoma Clubs of Lafayette (and surrounding
areas) have lived up to the name Sertoma in many projects. Here
we highlight a few of Sertoma’s projects:
• Freedom’s Program started in 1963 became the
American Heritage Program.
Read More
• In 1934
Sertoma started the Sugar Bowl Classic in New Orleans which is
still taking place each year.
• In 1963
Sertoma of Lafayette Immunized 80,000 Citizens for Polio.
Read
More
• The same
year, Sertoma International and our local clubs
took on the mission of serving the needs of children and others
with speech-language and other communication disorders.
•
Sertoma’s Boy’s Clubs and later Boy’s & Girl’s Clubs were
established and are still working in Acadiana.
• Slow
pitch softball is another triumph of Sertoma.
• The Alan
Comeaux Endowed Scholarship in Communication Disorders was
established 2001 at UL
From now on Lafayette Sertoma Club will continue to support
doctoral students who plan on careers of service in
communication disorders .
• Sertoma
Literacy Camps have helped many hundreds of children become
readers since 1993.
• The
Audiology Booth at S. J. Montgomery was purchased by Sertoma in
2002 and is the best in the region.
• Sertoma has provided
scholarships for children to go to Camp Bon Coeur for kids with
heart defects for summer after summer since 1999.
• Sertoma has set aside
$30,000 from its 2004 Cajun Air Festival to help sponsor the
first ever Sertoma International Conference on Autism Spectrum
Disorders April 12-14, 2007 at the Cajundome Conference Center
(partnering with Acadian Society for Autistic Citizens and UL
Lafayette).
The American Heritage
Program
In 1963 Sertoma started
Freedom’s Program to distribute a copy of the Declaration of
Independence to every seventh grader, and later the Bill of
Rights was also added in. The point was to enable American
school children to know who signed the Declaration and what it
cost them. For most signers it cost their fortune, their home,
and, in many cases, their
lives. The Freedom’s Program was later
expanded to the Heritage Program with a
somewhat broader scope,
not only to let school children know about two of the
foundational documents of American freedom but to educate them
about our economic system as well. More particularly the
Heritage Program tells the story of the socialist experiment of
the early colonists at Plymouth. The common storehouse idea and
communal ownership did not work. Equal distribution to all alike
regardless of how hard or little they worked was not a feasible
system. The good Christian people at Plymouth were reduced to
near starvation and quarreling with each other. The colonists
had a meeting to try to figure out a way to motivate everyone to
do his or her fair share of the work. The new plan? Private
ownership and personal responsibility. Sound familiar? Do the
words "capitalism" and "private enterprise" ring any bells?
Governor Bradford wrote in his diary that because of private
ownership everyone got busy so they could have more food and
live better. The result was to give responsibility back to the
people and take it away from the government. The results were
private initiative, increased production, competition, dignity,
and just rewards for work done. Capitalism and the engine for
free enterprise were born in America.
Spreading socialism
threatens to return us all to a failed experiment. It didn’t
work at Plymouth in the 1700s, it didn’t work in the once great
Soviet Union, and it won’t work in America in the 21 century.
Sertoma aims to get the message out through the Heritage
Program.
The Sertoma Polio
Immunization Project in 1963
In 1963 the Sertoma Club
of Lafayette took on the monumental task of immunizing everyone
in Lafayette Parish and the surrounding area for all three known
strains of polio. At least 22 articles appeared in local papers
during the ramp up and the carrying out of the immunization
program. Everyone in Lafayette got on board.
The guy in the middle is our own former Sertoma President Gerald
Domingue. There has not been a single case of polio in our
region since the Sertoma Polio Campaign was completed more than
43 years ago.
In 1963, 80,000 people were immunized and Sertoma made a
difference.
Since the immunization of the 1960s, initiated by Sertoma, there
has not been a single case, much less an outbreak, of polio.
 |
 |
Press Clippings from
The Sertoma Polio
Immunization Project in 1963 |
|
